Just dropping in: Why Shield runs are down

As Australia's leading men's players prepare to transition from extra-short to first-class formats, one of the Sheffield Shield competitions all-time greats has suggested that drop-in pitches are the primary reason that run scoring has diminished over the past decade.

The overt aggression and reduced occupation times required in T20 competitions such as the recently concluded KFC Big Bash League are regularly cited as reasons why modern batters struggle to post sizeable scores in cricket's longer form.

A cursory study of Sheffield Shield data shows a circumstantial case to support those conclusions.

In the past decade, only two Shield batters have reached the 1,000-run milestone in the course of a summer – WA pair Adam Voges and Michael Klinger, who both achieved the feat when their team finished runners-up in 2014-15.

Across previous decades, stretching back to when Tasmania was added as a full participant in 1982-83 and the competition adopted its current 31-game structure, that number has averaged out at more than six-times the most recent return.

From 1999-00 until 2008-09, the 1,000-run mark was reached 18 times, the decade prior it was 14 and before then (including three seasons when each state played just nine matches) the total was eight.

But Jamie Siddons, the third-highest scorer in the Shield's 126-year history (with 10,643 runs) believes the most noticeable change in recent years has been not a diminution of batting techniques or improvement in bowling standards, but the shift in pitch conditions.

And while critics of drop-in pitches (that are a by-product of stadia's moves to multi-purpose entertainment venues) argue they have aided batters because they don't crack and break up to benefit spinners, Siddons sees a different side-effect.

He claims the extra grass and moisture that curators leave on and in drop-in pitches to ensure a more even contest between bat and ball makes for better bowling conditions on the first day or two of most Shield matches.

As a consequence, the days of batters plundering six, seven or even eight centuries – as was Michael Bevan's high watermark when playing for Tasmania in 2004-05 – in a single summer have not been witnessed since, save for Voges' half a dozen tons four seasons ago.

While acknowledging that pitch conditions have always been a variable depending on location and time of year, Siddons believes the change in wicket blocks at a majority of Australia's Test venues provides a clue to the diminishing output.

"You've got drop-in wickets, that's one thing that's definitely changed," he said today.

"There's a little bit more in them – they leave more in them because they don't break up and spin like the old wickets used to.

"We all leave more grass on it, so it's a little bit more of a challenge in the first two innings.

"I don't think the bowlers have improved massively - if we had the Test bowlers you could say, that but we rarely face them (at Shield level).

"I think it's just the pitches, and people going a little bit harder trying to get results might also play a bit of a part.

"But I couldn't put too much more on it than that."

A check of the statistics shows that the ratio of hundreds scored in the first phase of Shield matches has not altered drastically.

In the past summer and a half, around 63 per cent of centuries scored were produced in teams' first innings, while two decades ago that number was almost 69 per cent.

What has changed in recent years is the competition's bonus points system, which has been tweaked to heighten emphasis on match results rather than performances at the front-end of games.

Which, in turn, is likely to have increased the tempo at which the early stages of fixtures are played.

But Siddons, who served as an assistant coach with Australia's men's team and was at the helm of Bangladesh before taking up roles in New Zealand and now the West End Redbacks, points out there is no single factor that accounts for the dramatic drop in heavy scorers.

And it's not only the Shield competition's stand-out batters who struggle to dominate as did the players of a generation past.

The number of individual century-makers that the Shield has seen across the board has dipped markedly since a total of 76 tons were posted in the run-glut summer of 2003-04 (led by former Victoria and Australia opener Matthew Elliott, who scored seven of them).

Less than a decade later, that tally was reduced by more than half with just 32 Shield scores of 100 or more recorded in the lean days of 2012-13, three of which came from Ricky Ponting in his final season.

Last summer's return was 44 centuries, and with 18 of 31 Shield games completed this season the tally to date is 27.

The other factor that Siddons believe might redress the issue is greater preparedness to persevere with batters who have excelled at Premier Cricket level for a few years, rather than habitually turn to the next emerging crop of youngsters who then find themselves under immediate pressure to perform.

"Maybe we've got to be a bit more patient with the batters," said the 54-year-old who, as captain, led South Australia to their most recent Shield title in 1995-96.

"We're trying to get 20, 21-year-olds (into the Shield system), maybe we should be looking more at players who are 25, 26-year-olds before they're ready to go in Shield cricket.

"So we might need to shift our focus there.

"There's a lot of questions being asked about why batting doesn't seem to be as good as it was, but I certainly don't have the answers.

"I'd put it down to the wickets at the moment."

The popular belief, that the growth of T20 cricket worldwide has undermined batters' techniques and rendered them unable to survive at the crease for long periods, is not one to which Siddons subscribes.

Having spent the past week or more readying his charges for a return to four-day cricket after many of his Redbacks' squad were exclusively involved in the BBL for two months, he has not seen any sign of T20-style batting in the practice nets.

Even if the switch from 20-overs to four-day formats has to be achieved in less than a week for some players, including Tom Cooper who was part of Melbourne Renegades thrilling BBL final victory last Sunday.

"There's certainly a lot more shots being played in T20, but our players have adjusted," Siddons said on the eve of Shield cricket's return.

"There's no slogging in there (practice nets).

"It's a lot about forward defence, and leaving, and having great technique.

"They’ve now just got to take it out there into the middle - they're quite capable."